Many institutions generate organic waste that requires proper disposal. For example, businesses operations involving livestock frequently require disposal of dead, and possibly diseased, carcasses. Other examples include hospitals, morgues, mortuaries, and funeral homes that will have human remains that require proper disposition. For many years burial and incineration (cremation) were the primary manners in which such tissue was disposed. In recent years tissue digesters have been increasingly used as an alternative to burial or incineration for the orderly disposition of tissue. Alkaline hydrolysis, which exposes the tissue to a strong alkaline (or base) solution, is a process used in many tissue digesters. Most of the tissue is digested (dissolved) in the tissue digesters, and the dissolved tissue is then typically considered safe to discharge into the environment. A small percentage remains undigested at the end of the process (approximately only five percent of the original weight and volume of a carcass or cadaver is comprised of the mineral ash of the bones and teeth), but is sterile and easily crushed into a powder that may be used as a soil additive or presented to the family in an urn in much the same way as ash from a crematory.